Megan L. Purchase, Gary D. Bending and Ryan M. Mushinski

Volatile reactive nitrogen oxides (NO_y) are significant atmospheric pollutants, including NO_x (nitric oxide [NO] + nitrogen dioxide [NO₂]) and NO_z (nitrous acid [HONO] + nitric acid [HNO₃] + nitrogen trioxide [NO₃] + ...). NO_y species are products of nitrogen (N) cycle processes, particularly nitrification and denitrification. Biogenic sources, including soil, account for over 50% of natural NO_y emissions to the atmosphere, yet emissions from soils are generally not included in atmospheric models as a result of a lack of mechanistic data. This work is a unique investigation of NO_y fluxes on a landscape scale, taking a comprehensive set of land-use types, human influence, and seasonality into account to determine large-scale heterogeneity to provide a basis for future modeling and hypothesis generation

Environmental Science &Technology. October 2023